Loading1 Introduction
Contemporary management models, ranging from the classic ones such as strategic and behavioural management to the more revolutionary ones, such as lean and total quality management, devote considerable space to the role of leadership in organisational success. The delegation of responsibilities, the creation and sustenance of proactive, problem-solving work force/human resources, and the imperatives of shared decision-making are all incontrovertibly important and, accordingly have been interpreted by some theorists as testament to the decreasing importance of leadership (Gilbert, 2004; Svensson, 2005; Rad, 2005). This is an erroneous assumption, predicated on a misunderstanding of the distinction between authoritarian leadership and involved, proactive leadership. The distinction between the two is not only real but is one which makes all the difference between organisational success and failure; between organisational atrophy and organisational flexibility. As Baker et al. (1993) asserts, effective organisational leadership is a leadership which acknowledges the inherent value of delegation and autonomy but which at the same time, is present and involved; a leadership which displays, not only acumen in decision-making and strategic planning but which has the capacity to proactively to extraordinary circumstances through the utilisation of both change and crisis is management tools, such as demanded by the specific of the situation/crisis/change at hand. The effective leader is, in other words, one who has successfully negotiated the fine balance between involvement and delegation.
Defining effective leadership is a challenging endeavour and within the limits of the present research, an impossible one. Nevertheless, by clarifying the research's focus and delimiting the scope of its exploration, the study shall communicate the characteristics of the effective leader within the matrix of Total Quality Management [TQM. The reason for selecting TQM as the theoretical paradigm from within which the characteristics of the effective leader shall be defined is not because it happens to be the most popular and result-oriented management paradigm today but because, as Gilbert (2004) notes, leadership within TQM organisations are, by definition, highly effective leaders who have successfully negotiated between the exigencies of involvement and delegation, on the one hand, and who function as the founding bloc for an organisational culture which, beyond being fundamentally founded upon strategic management and planning, is constructively responsive to both change and crisis. Indeed, empirical studies have established that leaders within TQM organisations tends towards the display of higher levels of decision-making and strategic planning acumen than those in non-TQM organisations because strategic planning is both research-based and holistic, on the one hand and because decision-making is shared and knowledge-based, on the other. Following a review of the characteristics of the effective leader and an analysis of effective leadership within the matrix of strategic planning and decision making the research shall look towards case studies drawn from the IT sector in order to demonstrate the extent to which effective leadership is an inherently TQM one, based on an acknowledgement of the imperatives of information-based strategic planning and shared decision-making, while ineffective leadership is the very antithesis of the stated.
2 Leadership in TQM TheoryTQM is, as Easton and Jarrell (1998) maintain, a comprehensive organisational management system which is based upon the integration of several managerial perspectives, approaches and theories into one, in acknowledgement of the complexity of organisational structures themselves. However, the quasi-comprehensive organisational management approach forwarded by TQM does not imply that its adoption may support abandonment of strategic planning and organisational decision-making models (Sila, 2007). Certainly, TQM, insofar as it is predicated upon strategic management, well-defined decision-making models, statistical rigour, project management and performance measurement, embraces the tools particular to each of the stated (Sila, 2007). It is, as may be inferred from the aforementioned, a total quality management approach because it is founded upon a fundamental awareness of the inherent value of a wide array of management approaches.
Literature on TQM confirms the above stated and establishes it as a management philosophy which, rather than forward a novel management theory, discriminately embraces several management and organisational development theories and constructively exploits their strengths and tools for the formulation of a single, totalising management philosophy: TQM. In fact, according to Pike, Pike and Barnes (2005) the value of TQM lies in the fact that it seeks to build upon the existent body of management theories rather than, as is the customary approach, invalidate and replace them.
Fundamental to TQM, as numerous management, organizational leadership, and OD scholars have concluded, is effective leadership (Johnson, 2001; Raelin, 2003; Pike, Pike and Barnes, 2005). Effective leadership, within the context of TQM, subscribes to a leadership model which employs management tools particular to information-based, goal-oriented strategic planning, decentralised and cooperative decision-making models, and an inherent capacity for proactive crisis and change management. As Raelin (2003) explains, proactive responsiveness to crisis may sound oxymoronic insofar as crises supposedly erupt unexpectedly but, this is not necessarily true. Strategic planning which is based upon an awareness of, and an accounting for, the nature of the external environment, the sector and market within which the organisation is located and, above all, which has the flexibility requisite for immediate response to changing external environmental and market conditions, lends to strategic plans which allow organisational leadership the requisite leeway for proactive response towards nascent crises before their development into full-fledged crises. The implication here is that effective leadership, at least from within the matrix of TQM theory, is not simply a leadership which has an acumen for strategic planning and decision making but, whose acumen for either derives from both research-based knowledge and the utilisation of a wide array of proven management tools and strategies.
To better explain the extent to which leadership in TQM is fundamentally founded upon knowledge-based acumen in strategic planning and decision-making, it is necessary to briefly overview the theoretical parameters of either.
2.1 TQM Leadership in Strategic PlanningThe classical approach to strategy argues that it is a rational and deliberate process in which realised and intended strategies match (Mintzberg and Waters, Chapter 1 in Segal-Horn, 1998; Whittington, 2001; Wheelen and Hunger, 2005). In direct comparison, the evolutionary approach defines strategy as a creative and emergent process and, as such, is interpreted as a critique of the classical approach (Mintzberg and Waters, Chapter 1 in Segal-Horn, 1998; Whittington, 2001; Wheelen and Hunger, 2005). TQM compromises between these seeming opposites, defining strategy as a blueprint for the means by which an organisation will realise its strategic goals, emphasising both rationalism and flexibility. Successful strategic planning, at the heart of which is an organisational leadership which displays commitment to rational and deliberate strategy during periods of intra- and extra-environmental stability and the flexibility required for the re-articulation/re-design of strategic plans during periods of crisis, change and conflict, is the primary determinant of an organisation's capacity to satisfy its short and long-term objectives (Beaver and Prince, 2004).
The claim that the nature of an organisation's leadership makes the difference between organisational success ad failure, is validated by empirical evidence. Reviewing the correlation between strategic plans which are responsive to intra- and extra-environmental conditions and leadership, on the one hand, and the relationship between positive financial/non-financial performance indicators and organisational leadership across 32 TQM IT organisations, Oakland (2003) forwarded a number of interesting findings. Briefly stated 94% of respondents determined that profitability was immediately related to strategic planning while 91% asserted that organisational leadership both enabled and provided the framework for successful strategic plans. As noted, leadership enabled successful strategic plans through resource allocation, capacity to respond to crisis/change/conflict through the re-direction of the strategic plan in question, when and if needed, and through the dissemination of an interactive and communicative organisational culture in which management listens to its work force 9new ideas proposals) and has strong ties with the external environment (Oakland, 2003). In other words, leadership is at the heart of successful strategic plans, a primary factor in organisational success.
2.2 TQM Leadership in Decision-Making